Demonstrators decrying US President Donald Trump’s policies took to city streets across the country yesterday in the third edition of the “No Kings” rallies which organisers hope will be the largest single-day protest in US history.
More than 3,200 events are planned in all 50 states and several cities outside the US. The two previous ‘No Kings’ events attracted millions of participants.
Singers Bruce Springsteen and Joan Baez will headline a rally at the state capitol in Minnesota, where upward of 100,000 people are expected to gather in an area that became a flashpoint over Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration and the incursion of federal immigration agents into Democratic-led urban centers.
Other large rallies are taking place in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, but two-thirds of the events are happening outside major city centres, a nearly 40 per cent jump for smaller communities from the movement’s first mobilisation last June, organisers said.
On the National Mall in Washington, the crowd chanted pro-democracy slogans and held anti-Trump signs.
Outside one high-rise assisted-living centre in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a group of elderly people in wheelchairs held signs encouraging passing cars to “Resist tyranny,” “Honk if you want democracy” and “Dump Trump.”
In Austin, Texas, a brass band provided the soundtrack as protesters gathered outside City Hall before a march through downtown.
Thousands gathered in midtown Manhattan, where actor Robert De Niro, one of the organisers, said that “there have been other presidents who have tested the constitutional limits of their power, but none have been such an existential threat to our freedoms and security.”
“The defining story of this yesterday’s mobilisation is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,” said Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, the group that started the No Kings movement last year and led planning of yesterday’s events.
The rallies come as Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 36 per cent, its lowest point since his return to the White House, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
A spokesperson for the National Republican Congressional Committee criticised Democratic politicians and candidates for supporting the rallies.
“These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left’s most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone and House Democrats get their marching orders,” spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.
With midterm elections later this year in the US, organisers say they have seen a surge in the number of people organising anti-Trump events and registering to participate in deeply Republican states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.
Competitive suburban areas that have helped decide national elections are seeing “huge” increases in interest, Greenberg said, citing as examples Pennsylvania’s Bucks and Delaware counties, East Cobb and Forsyth in Georgia, and Scottsdale and Chandler in Arizona.
No Kings movement launched last year on Trump’s birthday, June 14, drew an estimated 4 to 6 million people across roughly 2,100 sites nationwide.
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